After a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at the University of Malaga, María Dávila continued her education at the University of Granada where she obtained a Master's degree in Artistic Production and Research and, then, an international doctorate in History and Arts in 2019.
She explores the boundaries between fiction and reality by the appropriation of other visual languages. Based on photographic or cinematographic material, each series results from a meticulous research of "the precise form, the right moment, the perfect scene" regardless of the plot and its interpretation. Her painting is executed by subtraction of material, excluding any hesitation or pentimento: a first white primer paint, then some black or colored layers that she rubs quickly to reveal characters, shadows and lights.
Her series "Dramatis personae" is about the act of looking and being looked at in the construction of identity, from cinematographic forms based on narrative (de)construction such as Surrealist or Nouvelle Vague films. "Post scriptum" deals with the representational nature of human relationships; through a dialogue with cinema and theater, the paintings highlight the narrative construction at the heart of personal interactions. The series of drawings "Anónimo" is based on two different photographic sources: a family album from the 40s-60s and the photographic archives from the University of Granada. Through the connection between these documents out of their original context, María Dávila seeks to question the so-called objectivity of the photographic picture. In her series of pastels "Aprendí a verme a través de tus ojos", she engaged in an exercise of self-analysis by revisiting some of her father's video recordings centered on her earliest childhood and her own family to propose "a visual approximation to the experience of the first gaze as the founder of personality".
Her work offers a reflection on the painting and the status of pictures, on the visible and the hidden. It refers continuously to the artwork as an area of the ineffable and to our condition of viewer, frustrated in our desires and expectations by the silence of painting. But it also claims to be revelation, projection screen for our fantasies, invitation to test illusion.
María Dávila has been the recipient of several prizes, such as the MálagaCrea, and her work is part of public and private collections: CAC Málaga, collection Luciano Benetton, Fundación Gaceta de Salamanca, Facultad de Bellas Artes de Málaga…